DEMONSTRATIVE METHOD IN STROMATEIS VII: CONTEXT, PRINCIPLES, AND PURPOSE Matyᡠs Havrda At the beginning of his polemic against Celsus, Origen briefly responds to his opponent’s comparison between the Greek and the barbarian attitude towards doctrines (δόγματα). According to Origen, Celsus praises the bar- barians for their ability to invent doctrines, but claims that the Greeks are better equipped to examine and conijirm them (κρῖναι καὶ βεβαιώσασθαι). 1 Like Jewish and Christian apologists, and many Platonists of his time, Celsus believes that Greek philosophy depends on ancient wisdom in its doctrines; nevertheless, he points out that it has developed unprecedented methods of critical examination and scientiijic demonstration. 2 But Origen remains unimpressed. Referring to the Apostle’s claim to speak with “a demonstra- tion of the Spirit and of power” (1Cor 2:4), he retorts that “there is a kind of demonstration appropriate to the Logos, more divine than the Greek one derived from dialectic.” 3 Origen tells us a little more about this kind of demonstration in the opening lines of the fourth book of De principiis, where he notes that the greatness of the matters explored by Christian researchers does not allow them to rest content with common notions and the visual evidence, but, as Origen puts it, “in order to provide what appears to us as demonstration of our statements, we also take into account the testimonies of the Scriptures that we believe to be divine, the so-called Old and the New Testament.” 4 Here again, Origen indicates that Christian thinkers are equipped with a demonstrative method superior to the one derived from Greek dialectic. Whereas the principles of philosophical demonstration are limited to the common notions and the evidence of the senses, when it comes to things divine, the Christian researcher can also rely on testimonies he believes to be divine. 5 1 Origen, Cels.I2. 2 Cf. Horacio E. Lona, Die ‘Wahre Lehre’ des Kelsos (Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder, 2005), 74f. 3 Origen, Cels. I 2: ἔστι τις οἰκεία ἀπόδειξις τοῦ λόγου, θειοτέρα παρὰ τὴν ἀπὸ διαλεκτικῆς ἑληνικήν. 4 Origen, Princ. IV 1,1. 5 Cf. Lorenzo Perrone, “L’argomentazione di Origene nel trattato di ermeneutica bib-